


Here Comes The Snake

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [38]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:37:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Draco Malfoy is Sergeant Derek Foy, the ATA gene is really just magic, and Draco is outmaneuvered by Evan Lorne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, About last night..."

Draco caught Major Lorne as he was coming out of his office.  
  
“Sir.”  
  
Lorne paused. “Sergeant?”  
  
“About last night,” Draco began.  
  
Lorne raised his eyebrows, then stepped back into his office, beckoning for Draco to follow. He swiped a hand over the lock to close the door. His expression was carefully blank, and Draco couldn’t read the emotion in his eyes. That was unsettling. He’d learned from a very young age to read other people. Knowing their emotions and motivations was the best way to have the advantage in every encounter. A true Malfoy always, always had the advantage.  
  
Of course, these days Draco was no true Malfoy. He was Sergeant Derek Foy, United States Marine, assigned to AR-3 in the Pegasus Galaxy, because he had magic.  
  
The silly scientists called it the ATA gene, but it was the magic singing in his blood that allowed him to use the so-called ‘Ancient’ technology. Merlin was an Ancient, the scientists and anthropologists said. They were wrong.  
  
But no one from home would ever think to look for him here, doing this, and he was safe. The other Marines thought the tattoo on his arm was _badass._ They had no idea how bad a tattoo it was. Draco could still remember writhing and screaming on the ground with the rest of the Death Eaters from the collective _crucio_ the Dark Lord had cast on all who bore the Mark.  
  
Draco licked his lips, ducked his head coyly. “I promise not to tell anyone.” As much as no one from home would look for him here, he was still in a precarious position. No one trusted a man who’d give up his citizenship and take up with the armed forces of another country, no matter how many times Draco had proved himself loyal and brave on SG-15. As the Atlantis Expedition had an international staff, his accent garnered fewer strange looks, but Draco knew he needed an extra edge of protection, and warming the 2IC’s bed was a safe bet.  
  
But then Lorne’s expression softened, and he said, “No, I know you’d never do that. I was just -” He ducked his head, then peered up at Draco from beneath his lashes. “I thought you were coming to tell me it was a mistake.”  
  
Draco realized he had made a grievous misstep. Lorne actually had feelings for him. But if he burned the man now, he’d be in for an awful time of it later. “No, not a mistake.” Draco tilted his head just so, exposing the long line of his throat (he’d learned as much from his mother as from his father). “I wanted to tell you that I had a good time, and if you wanted to again -”  
  
“I definitely want to,” Lorne said. He smiled at Draco, leaned in, and kissed him softly.  
  
Draco couldn’t remember the last time someone had kissed him gently and sincerely like this, someone who didn’t have an ulterior motive - slaking their own selfish lust, getting one over on Lucius Malfoy, hoping he’d spill important war secrets in post-coital languor. He’d assumed Lorne was like so many other closeted soldiers, taken in by Draco’s soft skin and delicate features and pale hair.  
  
In for a penny, in for a pound, Draco thought, and kissed him back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any/any, first and last kiss."

The first time Draco kissed Evan, it was after watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, during which Evan had patiently explained muggle pop culture references and generously not mocked Draco's cultural ignorance. The rest of AR-3 (Stevens, Coughlin, Reed) had departed once the credits started rolling, irritated by the running commentary but feigning tiredness. Draco had leaned in, kept his voice soft, thanked Evan for his patience, explained he'd had a bit of a sheltered upbringing, he knew how odd his questions were. He'd been hoping to win some sympathy by displaying a measure of vulnerability, hoping Evan's natural protective instincts would be to Draco's benefit. He kissed Evan, and Evan kissed him back, and Draco knew he would be safe. He hadn't expected he would be loved.

The last time Draco kissed Evan, it was before a team of Aurors took him away. The entire world, muggle and wizarding alike, had been turned upside down when Atlantis splash-landed in the Pacific Ocean. Earth was not alone in the universe. Humans were not alone in the universe. And science and magic weren't as far apart as everyone thought. Draco had done his best to avoid the spotlight - not that difficult, seeing how the majority of the attention was on SG-1 and AR-1, but then some nosy reporter who put Rita Skeeter to shame got his grubby little hands on an AAR and saw that Major Evan Lorne had been on the Wraith hive ship before it detonated, and he had questions about AR-3, and Major Paul Davis, in all his muggle wisdom, let the reporter have at them. He'd hoped it would take some of the pressure off of the flagship teams. Draco hadn't been able to avoid the cameras. He'd said as little as possible during interviews, but the reporter had latched onto his accent, been intrigued by his vague past. And some muggleborn had seen a magazine article, and then the aurors appeared. Apparated in from seemingly nowhere. Evan and Draco had both drawn their sidearms automatically - they carried even when they were on libo - and shifted into formation to protect each other. But guns were of no concern to aurors.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry Potter said, "you are charged with crimes against Wizardkind. You must return to London to stand trial."

Ron Weasley eyed Evan with no small amount of disdain. "Should we call for an Obliviator?"

"No," Draco said. "You'd have to wipe years of his memory to hide the magical world from him." That was a lie. "Leave him out of this."

"Derek," Evan said in a low voice, "I'm not letting them take you."

"They won't have to take me. I'm going with them freely." Draco lowered his gun and turned to Evan, curved his hand over Evan's jaw. "I have to go. If I go quietly, they won't hurt you. Your gun won't hurt them. Nothing you can do will hurt them. And they'll try to make you forget me. Don't forget me. Please."

"Derek -"

"It's Draco, actually. Draco Malfoy." He leaned in and kissed Evan goodbye.

Evan lowered his gun automatically, cradled Draco's face in his hands and kissed him back.

Potter cleared his throat.

Draco pulled back. He caught Evan's gaze, held it for a moment, then turned away, raised his hands in surrender, and walked into Auror custody.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, I didn't know I'd love you so much."
> 
> Draco Malfoy is confronted with his past and his present when Aurors Weasley and Potter interrogate him.

“He’s not saying much,” Weasley said, as if Draco weren’t right there.  
  
Potter swept into the interrogation room, auror robes flapping dramatically behind him. Draco suspected Potter wouldn’t appreciate the comparison to Professor Snape, but the swirl of robes as he turned the corner was familiar.  
  
“What is he saying?” Potter asked. “Anything?”  
  
Weasley leaned over the table to peer at Draco. “Where is Mulciber?”  
  
Draco had been through SERE training like every other marine before him. “Sergeant Derek Foy, Service Number 21-7-842, United States Marines.”  
  
Weasley threw his hands up. “That’s all he’ll say, no matter what I ask.”  
  
“Hermione says it’s the standard response for armed services members under interrogation.” Potter crossed his arms over his chest. “Only he’s not really a United States Marine, is he?”  
  
A younger auror stepped into the room, handed Potter a file. The paper inside it was actually paper and not parchment.  
  
Potter flipped it open, raised his eyebrows. Then he set it down on the table, and Draco could see it was a copy of his service jacket.  
  
“Well, what do you know. It says here that Derek Foy enlisted as a United States Marine in 1998. Graduated from Parris Island with distinction, was assigned to Project Bluebook as a private.”  
  
Weasley snickered, because he was immature.  
  
“And from there, he was assigned to base security, then moved on to SG-15 when he reached corporal, and after the Atlantis Expedition reestablished contact with Earth, he was assigned to AR-3, which was under the command of...Evan Lorne.” Potter raised his eyebrows. “That the bloke we caught you snogging, then? The Yanks don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, do they?”  
  
“Sergeant Derek Foy, Service Number 21-7-842, United States Marines.”  
  
“Did you think that running to the Yanks and pretending to be a muggle would absolve you of your crimes?” Weasley asked. “You let Death Eaters into a school full of children. _You_ are a Death Eater.” He reached out, poked Draco in the arm. “Does your boyfriend know what this tattoo means? Would he still fancy you if he knew you’d participated in the murder of children?”  
  
“He did say his boyfriend had years and years of memories of the magical world,” Potter murmured. “So his boyfriend must have known. Might have even liked it. You know what they say about soldiers. They’re _baby killers_.”  
  
“Don’t talk about Evan that way.”  
  
Weasley smirked.  
  
“You don’t know what it was like out there,” Draco said. “With the Goa’uld and the Ori and the Wraith. While you’ve been strutting around this tiny island like you’re the king of the world, entire galaxies have been at war, and we’ve been out there fighting and dying to make sure you can keep on strutting.”  
  
“So you _are_ Draco Malfoy,” Potter said softly.  
  
He’d never stop being Draco, never stop being a Malfoy, but he’d legally had his name changed when he was seventeen, when he’d first arrived in America. He was, for all intents and purposes, Derek Foy.  
  
“Did you know,” Draco said, “the muggles have figured out how to give themselves magic? They call it gene therapy.”  
  
Potter blinked.  
  
Draco tilted his head, reached out with his mind like he’d done on Atlantis a thousand times, and there it was. The thrum of magic, of _Ancient tech_. And he thought, _On._  
  
He hadn’t spoken a spell in years, didn’t need to, not anymore.  
  
Weasley yelped when everything in the room went haywire, flashing and flying and spinning and shrieking. Draco had set off the escape alarms.  
  
Potter whipped out his wand, cast a spell to strengthen the chains binding Draco to the chair, the table, and the floor, but Draco didn’t move.  
  
Weasley began shouting counterspells, trying to subdue the alarm and the spare shackles and the warning light and the veritaserum detector and all the other auror bits and baubles.  
  
“Tell us where the other Death Eaters are,” Potter said.  
  
“You’ve a copy of my service jacket,” Draco said. “I haven’t set foot in Europe, let alone England, in over ten years. For the last four years, I haven’t even been on Earth, haven’t been in this galaxy. Do you know what that means? Or did you sleep through Astronomy?”

“Bring him in,” Weasley said, and Draco’s throat closed when two aurors hauled Evan, wide-eyed and confused, into the room.

“Derek,” Evan said, “what’s going on?”

Potter pointed his wand at Evan. “Tell us where the remaining Death Eaters are.”

“Sir,” Draco said, holding Evan’s gaze, trying to keep calm even though his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest, “everything will be fine. Can you contact the SGC?”

Evan flinched back from Potter’s wand. “No. They took my radio and my mobile. I -”

Draco narrowed his eyes. Mobile. That wasn’t what the Americans called a _cell phone._ “Sir, can you feel it? It’s just like Atlantis.”

“Feel what?” Evan struggled. “Let me go!”

Evan, like the rest of AR-3, was a natural gene carrier. After Sheppard and Beckett, Evan had the strongest gene expression in the Expedition. He could feel Ancient tech better than Draco could.

Draco sat back. “You’re not really Evan Lorne.”

“Derek,” Evan protested. “That’s crazy talk. We have to get out of here. Help me.”

Potter said, almost too casually, “ _Ignitio._ ”

Draco closed his eyes. Evan screamed. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

“Derek, _please._ ” Evan was sobbing. But he wasn’t really Evan. Draco was sure of it. Draco was -

Another spell. Another scream.

Weasley said, “You really are a Malfoy, aren’t you? You don’t give a damn if he’s in pain.”

Draco opened his eyes. “Stop it. He’s probably just some poor trainee you polyjuiced into Evan to try to break me. You’ve probably convinced him that the pain will be worth it when the nasty, no good Death Eater cracks and surrenders the names of the comrades he’s been foolishly protecting all these years.”

“Malfoy,” Potter began. He sighed, and the other two aurors released the minion polyjuiced as Evan, hustled him out of the room, likely to see a healer.

Draco shook his head. “Enough, Potter. Here’s the truth of it: you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about who I am - didn’t know when we were in school, certainly don’t know now. And you don’t understand nearly enough about what’s going on out there beyond to stars to even begin to comprehend what I’ve been doing with my life. I never claimed to be a nice person or a good person or a kind person. But I am damn good at my job, and I love Evan Lorne, and while I realize that saying those four words strips me of any protection I might have had from the military, that’s one thing about me I do want you to know. So I will serve my time, and you will let me go when it is done, and we will never see each other again.”

Potter stared at him.

Weasley said, “So you admit you’re Malfoy, do you?”

“Get me a parchment and a quill, Weasel. Do you want a signed confession or not?”

Potter huffed, amused. “You really are Draco Malfoy.”

Weasley stuck his head out of the room. “Get me a quill and parchment!”

“Potter,” Draco said, “the world isn’t divided into Slytherins and Gryffindors.”

“So,” Potter said quietly, “tell me about Evan.”

Draco had never imagined it would come to this, that a decade’s hard work would be undone by the mere thought of Evan in pain (Evan, who had fought and bled beside Draco a dozen times over). He said, “He puts Granger to shame with his chore charts and schedules.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, _It started out with a kiss / How did it end up like this? / It was only a kiss / It was only a kiss_ "

It started out with a kiss. How did it end up like this? It was only a kiss. Evan was dazed and numb as the scarlet-robed wizards dragged Derek into the circular stone chamber, shoved him into the defendant’s chair, and waved their wands so chains sprung up and bound him down. Waving wands was so strange to him, because he could feel it in the air, buzzing like Ancient tech in the back of his head. Only it was magic.

Evan had known about magic since his first trip home on leave from Atlantis, had run into a strange woman named Luna who’d had Ancient tech that let her look into Evan’s mind (she called it his ‘aura’) and see things she wasn’t supposed to be, like the Stargate. When he’d proven able to use her wand (he’d thought it was a cheap piece of Ancient tech at the time, a children’s night light made to look like a wooden stick for some kind of rustic aesthetic), she’d summoned Peter Grodin, formerly of the Atlantis Expedition but actually an employee of the British Ministry of Magic, and John Sheppard, who was apparently part magical himself (the hair, Grodin explained grimly, was a _Potter thing_ ).

And so Evan learned that the ATA gene gave people the ability to use magic. In some people its expression allowed them to use Ancient powers like teleportation, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and variants of them that looked like transfiguration or brewing potions. In other people it allowed them to use Ancient tech even if they never manifested spontaneous use of Ancient powers. That was really all Evan needed to know about magic and the ATA gene for SGC purposes. The SGC was aware of the connection and was working with Grodin and others like him to see if any magical families were willing to have their so-called ‘squib’ relatives tested for aptitude with Ancient tech, build the number of natural gene-carriers in the expedition or even just at the SGC to serve as human light switches.

On the way back to Atlantis, after leave, Sheppard had explained a bit more about magic, about magical politics and history, Grindelwald and Voldemort, the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters.

“It didn’t really affect America, though,” John finished. “Mostly the British Isles and pockets of Eastern Europe.”

So when Evan returned to Atlantis, to his team, he looked at Derek Foy in a new light. He knew what Derek’s grim tattoo meant, knew from Derek’s posh James Bond accent that he’d had a part in the magical war, and not a pretty one. The shadows in Derek’s eyes, his reticence during Team Nights made so much more sense. His cultural missteps made more sense, too - his complete unfamiliarity with cultural icons like The Simpsons or even James Bond. Where Stevens and the rest of the team found Derek odd and unsettling, his cultural ignorance irritating, Evan saw Derek’s questions during movie night as a willingness to learn about a culture he’d once despised, a genuine desire to fit in and move on.

Derek asked questions, Evan answered them, and somehow during the question and answer session after a movie one night, they’d slid closer and closer together, and Derek’s eyes had slid closed, and they’d shared that first kiss.

One kiss had turned into a dozen kisses turned into Derek pinning Evan to the couch and sliding down to kneel between his thighs, unfastening Evan’s jeans with clever hands and then making Evan moan with his clever mouth and wicked tongue. One night turned into two nights turned into every night, and just as abruptly as it had started, it had ended, in a swirl of scarlet robes and a sound like a car backfiring as aurors appeared, snatched Derek, and disappeared.

Evan had gone straight to Sheppard and confessed everything. Sheppard, whose relationship with McKay was an open secret on Atlantis (but a secret secret from the SGC at large), had called Grodin, and now Evan was sitting on an ancient wooden bench beside Sheppard, McKay, Grodin, and Luna Lovegood Scamander.

“I don’t know what they hope to accomplish,” Grodin murmured. “Lucius Malfoy’s been in prison since the war ended. Narcissa Malfoy was murdered by rogue Death Eaters for lying to the Dark Lord about Potter’s demise. And the Malfoy estate was converted into an hospital and orphanage for the war’s survivors. When the blood wards protecting the property fell, it was assumed that Draco, the only heir, was dead. Only a non-Malfoy could assume control of the property if all Malfoys were dead.”

“Or had released their claims to it,” Sheppard added, a grim resignation in his tone.

The circular stone chamber felt like it was miles beneath London proper or, as Grodin called it, Muggle London.

The wizengamot was an assortment of men and women also in scarlet robes and wearing what looked like scarlet graduation caps or pointy witch and wizard hats, arrayed in several rows on one side of the chamber. The press section was full of people with levitating quills and parchment and cameras. The public gallery was full nearly to bursting and seemed to be divided into two camps: a gaggle of redheads of various ages but for whom there was a strong family resemblance - Evan guessed all the adults were siblings or cousins - and black-clad men and women with haughty or pinched expressions. Evan and his cohorts were crammed into the section with the black-clad people, who’d eyed their outfits - Sheppard, McKay, and Evan were wearing their best civilian suits - with marked disdain.

A beautiful, dark-skinned woman, wearing what looked like a red-and-gold saree beneath her scarlet robes, banged a gavel, called the proceedings to order.

“This is a plenary hearing, Seventh of July, into offenses committed by Draco Lucius Malfoy, last known residence Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire. Interrogators: Audrey Weasley, Solicitor General, and Cho Chang, Assistant Solicitor General. Counsel for the defendant?”

“Theodore Nott, Madam Patil.” Theodore was a thin man with mousy brown hair, spectacles, and wearing conservative dark blue robes. He stood beside the chair Derek was chained in, clutching a handful of parchment.

“Witnesses for the Interrogators?” asked Madam Patil.

Audrey was a slender, dark-haired woman, also with spectacles, and an absent air to her that reminded Evan of Luna, but when she peered over the tops of her spectacles at Theodore, her gaze was sharp and searching.

Audrey had an exhaustive list of witnesses, many of whom bore her last name. At a sharp look from Madam Patil, Audrey explained that Assistant Solicitor General Chang would be interrogating any of her relatives and that Audrey would be handling the examination of such witnesses as Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Their names drew whispers from all sides of the chamber, which Madam Patil quelled with a single sharp look.

“Witnesses for the defendant?”

The levitating quills scribbled madly on the levitating parchment, creating a susurration that made Evan’s skin crawl.

Theodore cleared his throat. “John Fleamont Potter Peverell Sheppard -”

“ _Fleamont?_ ” Rodney hissed. “You laughed at me about Meredith and _one_  of your middles name is Fleamont?”

Sheppard shrugged nonchalantly, but the tips of his ears were decidedly pink.

“The Fleamonts were a long-standing and well-respected pureblood family,” Luna said. Evan remembered her obsession with names and their origins and meanings. Names were magic, she said.

“ - Lucius Reynard Malfoy -”

A gasp rippled through the audience. The scratch of the levitating quills got louder.

“ - Jonathan Jorkins O’Neill -”

Evan sat up straighter. “General O’Neill?”

“He has the gene,” Sheppard murmured.

“None,” Derek cut in.

Theodore’s eyes went wide. He leaned over and hissed, “Draco, shut up! What are you doing?”

“I need no witnesses on my behalf.” Derek’s grey eyes were flinty, his expression haughty. “I signed a written confession. I was a Death Eater. I allowed Death Eaters into Hogwarts for the Invasion of Hogwarts. My one-time allegiance to Voldemort is written into my skin.” He rattled the chains on his left arm.

More gasps and whispers swept through the crowd. Evan curled his hands into fists.

Madam Patil peered at Audrey. “Mrs. Weasley?”

“The defendant did write and sign a confession, but it is incomplete,” Audrey said, lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. “It is lacking his name, which is vital to making such a confession binding.” She held up a piece of parchment.

Theodore crossed the well of the court to look it over, and he sighed. “Draco -”

Derek lifted his chin. “I wrote that confession in full.”

“Then where is your name?”

“Either they removed it,” Derek began, and Audrey and Cho immediately began to protest.

“Or,” Theodore said, something like glee lighting in his eyes, “this man is not Draco Malfoy.”

Cries of outrage filled the air. Madam Patil banged her gavel repeatedly.

“Order!”

“Madam Patil,” Audrey began, but Theodore came to life, speaking rapidly, hands waving as he shuffled through his handful of parchment scrolls.

“There is precedent, Madam Patil, as recently as the Second Rising of Voldemort, about the interconnectedness of a name and an identity.” Theodore drew one parchment out of the sheaf in his hand and set it to rest on thin air, and in front of Evan’s eyes it turned into a book, which Theodore flipped through with quick, spidery hands. The thrum of Ancient tech in the back of Evan’s head flared louder for a moment.

“When Lord Voldemort put a geas on his name, that geas was tied not just to the word of his name but the magical identity associated with it.” Theodore paused at a page and rattled off a series of legal precedents or possibly magical theories or both.

Audrey narrowed her eyes and glanced over her shoulder at Cho, who heaved a volume onto her desk and began tearing through it.

“If this man is truly Derek Foy and is no longer Draco Malfoy, then it stands as incontrovertible proof that he has changed and reformed and cannot be held legally responsible for Draco Malfoy’s crimes, as Draco Malfoy is legally deceased,” Theodore said.

Audrey raised her eyebrows. “Madam Patil, even if this change in identity were possible and legally recognizable, all it would be is proof that this man has changed, not that he has reformed.”

“Even if the change in identity were not proof of reform, witness testimony will demonstrate he has reformed,” Theodore said promptly. He added, a little meekly, “If the defense were allowed to proceed, of course.”

Madam Patil eyed Theodore warily. “Perhaps the defense should ascertain whether or not there will be witnesses for the defense.”

“Theo,” Derek said in a low, dangerous voice, “what are you doing?”

Theodore strode over to him and they proceeded to have a conference of furious whispers.

“In the meantime,” Madam Patil said, “perhaps someone ought to perform the preliminary task of establishing the defendant’s identity. Was his wand examined and cataloged?”

Audrey pursed her lips into a thin line. “He was not in possession of a wand when he was taken into custody, and no wand has been provided. Besides, Harry had his school wand, won in a duel during the Second Rising.”

At Madam Patil’s raised eyebrows, Audrey amended, “Harry Potter.”

Shocked gasps rose up from the black-clad section of the audience when Audrey said that Derek had been picked up without a wand.

“Well, that _is_ going native,” Luna said.

Madam Patil eyed Derek for a long moment. “What other means of establishing identity are available?”

“Short of a wand or a test against blood wards, I am unsure,” Audrey said.

Theodore lifted his head briefly and said, “The blood wards on Malfoy Manor have ceased to function in the absence of a true Malfoy Heir.”

Cho pawed through another leather bound codex. “The Ministry has a name identification system. All who enter are named.”

It was true. When Evan, Sheppard, and McKay had followed Grodin into a red phone booth that then descended like an elevator, name tags had popped out of the coin return slot. Evan’s read _Major Evan Lorne, Second-in-Command of the Atlantis Expedition_. Sheppard’s read _John Sheppard, Flyboy_. McKay’s read _Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, Smartest Man in Two Galaxies_. Grodin hadn't needed a name tag.

“And what name was given to the defendant?”

“Suspects don't come through the visitors' entrance,” Cho said. “He wasn't issued a name badge.”

“Have one issued for him,” Madam Patil said.

Audrey and Cho conferred quickly, and it was decided, rather than the security risk of taking Derek to the visitor entrance, one of the control crystals for the visitor tracking system would be brought to the hearing chamber.

“Control crystal?” McKay perked up.

Cho and a handful of other minions were excused from the chamber. A low din of chatter began, but Madam Patil banged her gavel wordlessly and it died down. Audrey trotted up to the audience gallery to confer with the black-haired man in the sea of redheads. The man, Evan noticed, had unruly hair the likes of which Evan had only ever seen on one person before. When the man turned to peer up at the gallery, Evan recognized him. One of the men who’d taken Derek.

Evan’s hands curled into fists.

Cho and the robed minions returned. McKay craned his neck to see what she had, which was a wooden box. When she opened it, it contained not a neat slice of circuit crystal but a raw chunk of crystal that was pulsing with power.

Several men and women wearing the same types of dark blue robes as Grodin gathered around the crystal and tapped it with their wands.

“Are we ready to proceed?” Madam Patil asked.

Cho nodded, and Unspeakable Hannah Abbott was sworn in, testified that the crystal was part of the Ministry’s visitor tracking system and that it was in proper working order.

And then the Unspeakables realized they had no idea how to make the crystal affect Derek short of stuffing him into the red phone box, and there was a lot of milling around and muttering and pointing of wands, and finally another woman climbed over the public gallery barrier from among the crowd of redheads. She had fluffy brown hair and an impatient frown and said,

“For Merlin’s sake, let me do it.”

“Madam Patil,” Audrey said, “Mrs. Granger-Weasley -”

Madam Patil sighed. “Yes, fine. Please proceed, Hermione.”

Hermione rolled up her sleeves, drew her wand, and murmured a stream of latinate words that did sound like Ancient, and the thrum of Ancient tech in the air rose sharply.

Evan’s breath caught in his chest when mist began coalescing over Derek’s head. He watched as the mist swirled and shifted, and finally it began to resolve itself into letters, which shuffled themselves into words.

 _Sergeant Derek Foy, Atlantis Expedition, Stargate Command_.

Hermione stared at the words for a long moment.

“Well, counsel?” Madam Patil asked.

“Recess, Madam?” Audrey asked, wearing a sour expression.

Madam Patil looked amused, but she said, “Granted,” and banged her gavel.

Red-robed aurors surged to their feet from the front benches and began herding people out of the chamber. Voices rose sharply to a din, questions, exclamations, accusations. One black-robed woman tried to step into the well of the court.

“Draco!”

“Move along, Pansy,” one of the aurors grumbled.

Derek shook his head at her, and she pouted, but allowed the auror to chivvy her along.

“Want to speak to him?” Sheppard asked quietly.

Evan glanced at him. Sheppard’s gaze was dark, knowing. Evan took a deep breath, then nodded. Sheppard rose up, picked his way down the rows to the well of the court, and he wove through the crowd of redheads with ease. He caught up to the black-haired man who’d arrested Derek, and for a moment it was like seeing two peas in a pod, two messy heads of hair bent close together.

Sheppard lifted his head, beckoned for Evan, and Evan hurried down the steps, dodging redheads and apologizing.

“Harry,” John said, “this is Major Evan Lorne, my 2IC.”

Harry Potter. The man who was supposed to talk to Evan the night he had the strange encounter with Luna. The man who’d defeated Lord Voldemort. The man who’d snatched Derek off the streets of San Francisco with barely a word.

“Major Lorne,” Harry said. He wore glasses and had green eyes, the same shade of green Sheppard’s could be in just the right light. He offered a hand, which Evan shook.

“Malfoy’s told me a lot about you,” Harry said. “If you like, you can have a word with him in private while the hearing is recessed.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Evan said softly.

“Thanks, cousin.” Sheppard clapped Evan on the shoulder. He turned away when McKay called his name, and Harry told another auror to allow Evan to accompany them back to the cells. The aurors flicked their wands, and the chains binding Derek to the chair retracted. They hauled him to his feet, flicked their wands some more, and Derek was bound in chains once more, and they led him, clanking, to the cells.

Evan trailed along behind them, not even sure Derek had seen him, what with the way Theodore was shouting at him as he was led away. Evan hung back while Derek was transferred into a cell and the chains vanished, and then he had to press himself against the cold stone wall as the aurors filed past.

Evan had no doubt that he was being watched, but he stepped up to the bars of the cell.

“Derek.”

Derek’s head came up sharply, gray eyes wide. Then he smoothed out his expression and stood up, dusted off his black robe. His white-blond hair was too long for regulation, had been a little unruly when Atlantis crashed down on Earth, was even longer for his time without a visit to the base barber. It was fluffy and wild around his head, made him look younger, softened the sharp angles of his face.

“Evan, what are you doing here?”

“Sheppard brought me.”

Derek raised his eyebrows. “Colonel Sheppard?”

“Apparently he’s really John Fleamont Potter Peverell Sheppard.”

“Potter. Of course. The hair.” The corner of Derek’s mouth curved up in cruel amusement. Then he drew back, gaze hooded. “How do I know you’re really Evan?”

“What?” Evan frowned.

“You could be another polyjuiced auror for all I know,” Derek said. “Prove you’re Evan Lorne.”

“I - what do you want me to say?”

“Something only Evan would know.”

“But if they can turn into me, can they read my mind?” Evan regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, because Derek withdrew further.

Then Derek lifted his chin and said, “Can you feel it? It’s just like -”

“Atlantis,” Evan said. The constant buzz of Ancient tech in the air, under his skin was unsettling. “Is this what it feels like for you, all the time? What it felt like growing up?”

Derek shrugged. “This was my world, growing up. This was everything. And then I moved to America, and I had nothing, and then I had Atlantis.”

“You had me, too.”

Derek took a step closer. “Had?”

“Have,” Evan said softly. “Only -” He reached out to put his hand between the bars, felt a jolt, just like the force field used on the cells in the brig on Atlantis. “Only you don’t get to keep me, do you? Even if they let you out, you and I -”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Derek said. “By the magic. The wands and the robes.”

“I met Luna during my first run of leave from the Expedition,” Evan said.

“And she told you about me?”

“About magic, really. Not about you specifically.”

Derek glanced down, then up again, peering at Evan through his lashes. “So that first time I kissed you. You knew about magic, about -” He curved his hand over his left sleeve, his left forearm.

“I knew.”

“And you kissed me anyway.”

“I did.”

Derek bit his lip. Then he stepped up to the bars. “Aurors, bring me my barrister!”

“Derek?”

Derek met Evan’s gaze. “I’m getting out of here. I’m coming back to you. Wait for me.”

Evan nodded.

Aurors appeared, herding Theodore in front of them.

“Finally come to your senses, have you?”

“Nott,” Derek said, “get me out of here.”

“It’ll take time. And witnesses.”

“Whatever it takes.”

Theodore raised an eyebrow. “You no longer have the Malfoy money or name to your benefit.”

“I have ten years with the SGC and eight years of combat pay on top of that that I’ve spent on absolutely nothing, gathering interest in an account somewhere in America while I’ve been fending off vampiric aliens among the stars. I have all the money I need.”

Theodore smirked. “Understood.”

A younger auror came trotting down the narrow stone corridor. “Recess is over. Madam Patil is convening the hearing.”

“Thank you.” Theodore turned to Derek. “Now, are you going to stop making my job difficult?”

“Come now, Theo, it’s not like I never tossed a firecracker in your cauldron before,” Derek drawled.

“We’re not at Hogwarts anymore.” Theo leaned in and lowered his voice. “Let’s win, Draco.”

“It’s Derek, these days. But yes, let’s win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read about Evan's encounter with Luna [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6521293).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any/any, he left his mark on my skin."
> 
> Derek Foy testifies in his own defense.

Derek sat in the chair, head held high. The black robes he wore were formless, cheap cotton, a step above a potato sack. He was pale, with dark rings around his eyes. Evan knew he’d slept little, stayed up late often, Theo with him, the two of them working on his defense. After three days of testimony from multiple witnesses, of evidence offered and explained and entered, this was it. The final witness. Derek had opted to speak in his own defense.  
  
Evan had betrayed a lot of his family’s ideals by joining the Air Force, by agreeing to serve the government and become an instrument of war, but his mother, grandmother, and sister, had never stopped loving him, never stopped supporting him, and tried to understand him. Watching Lucius Malfoy decimate his son in cold, unwavering terms was heartbreaking. He referred to Draco as his spawn, his failed fruit, a coward, a weakling, a pathetic child. Hearing Lucius denigrate his own wife for her weakness and disloyalty to the Dark Lord, choosing her son’s life over Voldemort’s was worse.  
  
While Sheppard had explained the politics and history of the Second Rise of Voldemort, Evan hadn’t really appreciated the finer, bloodier details of the conflict. As a soldier and a member of Stargate Command, he’d been witness and subject to horrors beyond the ken of the average soldier, but magic was capable of things Evan had never imagined. The torture, the mind-control, the rending of souls.  
  
The worst part was the children. Children being targeted in the war, and children fighting in the war. Audrey and Cho had a parade of witnesses who described the horror of the Death Eaters’ invasion of Hogwarts, their taking of the castle, the year of misery under the tutelage of the Death Eaters, the Battle of Hogwarts. Evan had seen Derek in the field, and it was all too easy to imagine him younger, more slender, hair longer, with that same battle grimness on his face, that same cultivated blankness that hid a perfect willingness to inflict violence.  
  
Theo was an amazing barrister. He put witnesses on the stand, people like Derek who’d grown up the children of Death Eaters, became Death Eaters themselves, spent their adolescence in fear and terror with the Dark Lord roaming the halls of their ancestral homes, turning on people in an instant, torturing or killing them at the drop of a hat, the sheer unpredictability of it all. Theo got Harry Potter to admit, on the stand, that Derek had lied to his murderous aunt, the infamous psycho killer Bellatrix Lestrange, about Harry’s identity and saved his life when he and his friend Hermione were captured by Death Eaters. Theo put O’Neill and Sheppard and members of SG-15 and AR-3 on the stand to speak of Derek’s discipline, courage, and heroism in the field. He put Lam, Beckett, and Keller on the stand to expound on Derek’s medical history, the things he suffered in the line of duty.  
  
Whatever mistakes Derek had made as a frightened teenager, one raised with fear and, admittedly, bigotry, he’d more than made up for them while fighting to defend multiple galaxies from threats far bigger than Tom Riddle. That was Theo’s argument.  
  
Audrey and Cho’s argument was that there was no way for Draco Malfoy to make up for the pain he’d caused, and he deserved to be punished.  
  
And now the jury was going to hear from Derek himself.  
  
“When I was seventeen years old,” Derek said, “I had a choice. I could let some of my father’s friends and longtime associates and relatives into Hogwarts Castle, or I could let a madman murder my mother and father. On paper, the choice should have been easy. If all lives are created equal, many lives are worth more than one life. I should have sacrificed my mother for a group of children who represented all I had been taught to fear.”  
  
Nausea roiled in Evan’s stomach. He couldn’t imagine having to choose between his mother and innocent children. His mother would have wanted him to choose the children. He knew he’d have chosen her, and he’d have hated himself every day for the rest of his life. He’d have hated himself more for choosing the reverse.

“I was young and afraid. I was cruel and bigoted. But I loved my mother, and I chose her. Voldemart left his mark on my skin.” Derek rattled the chains binding his left arm meaningfully. “He left his mark on my soul and all our souls. I made a choice, and I would do it again, because she was _my mother_.”  
  
Evan sucked in a breath. No. He sounded so cold and calculating and cruel, like his father, like _Draco Malfoy_.  
  
“I also made the choice to leave magic behind, to sign up for boot camp, and to step through the Stargate.” Derek scanned the crowds in the public gallery as well as in the jury box. “The things Lucius Malfoy said to me? Don’t hold a candle to the things a drill sergeant shouted at me on my first day at boot camp and every day in boot camp.”  
  
The Marines in the room chuckled knowingly. Madam Patil cast them a quelling look, and they quieted down.  
  
“Can I ever undo what I did? No. Have I been punished for what I did? Maybe. Will I ever repeat what I did? No. Time has given me a perspective I didn’t have then, when I was seventeen and Wizarding Europe was all I knew. The good we do in our life cannot erase the bad we have done. But if we are to be forever defined by the poor choices we made when we were young, we will forever be the twins who shoved a boy into a malfunctioning magical cabinet so he almost starved to death. We will be the boy who used a spell he didn’t understand and nearly eviscerated another student.”  
  
There were gasps and sharply in-drawn breaths.  
  
“We will be the boy who let Death Eaters into a school. We will be the girl who betrayed her friends to a government minion. We would not be one of the greatest magical inventors of all time, or one of the greatest Aurors in wizarding history. We would not be a soldier who stepped between a child and a space vampire and let himself be captured. We would not be one of the most talented barristers to serve the Wizengamot. I accept responsibility for what I have done. I cannot change it. I cannot excuse it. I can only move forward. If you do not let me move forward, however, I will not be the only one whose progress is halted.”  
  
Derek inclined his chin ever so slightly, and that was the end of his speech.  
  
Madam Patil banged her gavel and called for a recess. Red-robed Aurors escorted Derek back to the holding cell, and Theo hurried after him. The members of the Wizengamot stood up and stretched, yawned, but said nothing to each other. They would not speak until the public gallery was empty and they could deliberate in private.  
  
Evan followed Sheppard, McKay, Luna, Grodin, and O’Neill out of the courtroom and into the hallway.  
  
“How long do you think deliberation will take?” McKay asked.  
  
“Could take minutes, could take months,” Luna said.  
  
“Months?” McKay echoed.  
  
Luna glanced at Grodin, who nodded, expression apologetic.  
  
The rest of Evan’s team, who’d also been witnesses - Theo had refused to let Evan testify, and everyone had skirted around Derek and Evan’s illicit relationship - cut their way through the crowd.  
  
“You know,” Coughlin said, “I always wondered what that scar on Foy’s chest was. I figured it was open-heart surgery or something when he was a kid.”  
  
Reed frowned. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Didn’t you hear his testimony? Another kid nearly eviscerated him one time. Magic gone wrong.” Coughlin shivered. “The ATA Gene is seriously scary sometimes.”  
  
“Who do you think the betrayer was?” Evan asked. “Audrey or Cho?”  
  
“Cho,” Luna said quietly. “We all did things out of fear, back then.”  
  
Sheppard suggested they get drinks of water, so they wandered in the direction of the drinking fountain. As they passed a gaggle of redheads, Evan heard one of them say,  
  
“The nerve of that - that _Malfoy!_ Besmirching Fred’s memory like that.”  
  
“Montague didn’t nearly starve, did he, Gin?” another asked.  
  
A woman said, “Actually, he did. A lot of your pranks were dangerous.”  
  
“Teenagers do stupid things,” one of the men muttered.  
  
“Malfoy was a teenager,” the woman said.  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re buying into what he said? If hadn’t been such a bloody coward, Bill would never have been mauled by that Greyback monster.”  
  
“What would you have done, Ron? Sacrificed Mum for people who didn’t even like you?”

“Ginny! Lucius Malfoy almost killed you!”  
  
“Draco’s not Lucius.”  
  
“But -”  
  
“Just like Harry wasn’t his father either.”  
  
“James Potter grew up.”  
  
“Maybe Malfoy did too.”  
  
Evan pushed past them. He couldn’t handle hearing any more.  
  
They took turns at the fountain. The water was blessedly cool, soothed Evan’s throat. He straightened up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he turned to follow the others to a waiting area - and almost ran into a tall, beautiful woman, with silvery blonde hair and dark blue eyes.  
  
“Apologies,” Evan said, and slid out of her way.  
  
“Is it true?” she asked.  
  
It took a moment for Evan to work around her accent - French? “Is what true?”  
  
“What they were saying about Draco Malfoy, about the brave soldier he has become.”  
  
Evan gazed at her. “That’s not even the half of it, ma’am. The things he’s done. The times he’s willingly sacrificed himself for the people he works with, the people he’s supposed to protect.”  
  
“So much mortal peril, and he has not died?”  
  
Evan snorted. “Oh, he’s died. You’re not a real member of Stargate Command till you’ve died at least once.”  
  
“So he has literally given his life for others?”  
  
“He’s a Marine, ma’am,” Stevens said. “It’s what we do.”  
  
The woman studied Evan, Stevens, Coughlin, and Reed for a long moment, then nodded and turned away.  
  
Evan sank down on a wooden bench beside Sheppard, who was trying to explain some kind of magical sporting event to McKay, and tried not to imagine all of the worst things that could happen to Derek, to his team.  
  
To his heart.  
  
But he was an artist, and he could imagine things very vividly.  
  
Evan had just managed to distract himself by thinking of cleaning his P-90 when an Auror stepped into the hallway and announced that the jury had reached a verdict. People surged toward the courtroom doors, and Evan was swept along with them. He got separated from Sheppard and the others in the crowd, and somehow he ended up among the Purebloods and aristocrats, Derek’s old friends from school. He perched nervously on the end of one of the benches in the public gallery and watched as the members of the Wizengamot resumed their seats.  
  
Aurors dragged Derek, still shackled, out of the holding cells and chained him to the defendant’s chair. Theo stood beside him, drumming nervously on the spine of the book he had tucked against his hip. Audrey and Cho stood behind their counsel table.  
  
Once everyone was seated, Madam Patil cleared her throat, and a hush fell over the room.  
  
“Madam foreperson,” she said, “have you reached a verdict?”  
  
“We have,” said an anonymous witch in a scarlet robe.  
  
“And what do you find?”  
  
“We find the defendant, Derek Foy, not guilty of the crimes charged to Draco Malfoy,” the witch said.  
  
A murmur rose in the room.  
  
Madam Patil banged her gavel.  
  
“Were Draco Malfoy present, we would find him guilty of conspiring with the Death Eaters and accessory to the attempted murder of William Weasley,” the witch continued, “and we would sentence him to ninety-three days in jail.”  
  
Ninety-three days. That was the total number of days Derek had spent captive in various alien prisons as a member of Stargate Command.  
  
“I thank the counsel for their time and preparation for this matter, and the jury for their service.” Madam Patil banged her gavel again. “Release the defendant.”  
  
The chains vanished, and Derek rose up. He shook Theo’s hand, and then he crossed the well of the court to where Evan was sitting.  
  
“Draco,” one of the witches beside Evan said.  
  
“It’s Derek these days, Pansy,” he said. “And I’m not here to see you. Major Lorne, am I cleared for duty?”  
  
“Almost, Sergeant.”  
  
Derek arched an eyebrow. “Almost?”  
  
“Marine, you need a haircut.”  
  
Pansy looked aghast. And Derek - Derek laughed.


End file.
